Reading and Writhing

Posted on 2009 under Uncategorized | No Comment

11 Jun

: Image by Andrew Pescod ( Off on my Hols) via Flickr

Sometimes, it almost would be possible to sling a slew of links into a post and hit “publish” without commenting at all. This is one of those times. Of course, bloggers rarely do that and I wouldn’t want to start a trend.

I was idly perusing the pages of Craigslist, the other day, looking for writing gigs when I spied a freelance job that looked like it was right up my alley.

Here’s the headline:

Freelance Writher Wanted – Good Grammer and Attention to Details a Plust!

Unfortunately, although I’m wicked good at writhing and can gram with the best of them, I didn’t bookmark the ad, so I can’t apply. Foiled by a lack of attention to details, I guess. One of my many minustes or is that minusti? Or did they just combine “must” and “plus” to conserve words in their headline? I dunno.

Later this week, I read this press release – albeit not a very positive one for the state of Maine. In it, the Maine Dept of Fish and Wildlife announced their recommendations for “Safe Eating Guidelines for Fish and Shellfish in Maine” which I blogged further about at Lill’s List. Now, while I have no beef with the state’s stance on a lot of things, their idea of “safe” and mine are somewhat different. They recommend that pregnant and nursing women – or women who plan to become pregnant – consume no more than 2 meals of fresh or saltwater Maine fish per month. Ditto for kiddos under 8.

Can’t you just see Bobby at his 8th birthday party, beaming over a salmon with candles all up and down its back? “Enjoy, Son, you’re over 8 so you don’t have to worry about Dioxin, PCB’s and DDT. They only poison little kids.” I don’t think so.

Then there was the story I read that illustrates just how lousy our species is at trying to control the world. It seems that eagles – once endangered and near extinction – are getting out of hand. Now, they’ve recovered so well that they’re endangering other threatened bird species such as Great Cormorants and loons – and loons are Maine’s favorite water bird. Of course, the reason for this is that the fish that eagles have traditionally relied on are disappearing because of pollution and overfishing by humans.

Sometimes, I just want to bang my head on my keyboard and post whatever that types in, but instead, I turn to an old favorite of mine: Will Cuppy. I recently discovered a book that he wrote footnotes for. It’s called “Garden Rubbish and Other Country Bumps” by W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman and it should be in every gardener’s library.

In a section on how to use worms to improve the soil, Cuppy writes this footnote which has nothing whatsoever to do with that subject, but is very interesting nevertheless.

“It is not generally known that Dr. Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of THE Darwin, and author of “The Loves of the Plants” (1789), invented a new kind of carriage, one peculiarity of which was a platform resting partly on very high wheels and partly on the hindquarters of the horse, and further supported by an intricate system of rings, iron bars and sockets fixed to the harness. [Note- Wikipedia mentions that Dr. Darwin designed this to be a carriage that couldn't tip over] Unfortunately, Dr. Darwin was upset in this contrivance and broke his knee-cap. His horizontal windmill for grinding flints was more of a success; it is used even today by the very few persons who wish to grind flints.

The Wikipedia entry for Erasmus Darwin is even more fascinating but I’ll let you discover for yourself why he REALLY started that school for girls and why we could have been walking on the moon a lot sooner, if we’d listened to him.